From November 10th panel discussion on the foreclosure crisis.

Yolanda Kodrzycki, was a senior contributor to Toward a More Prosperous Springfield, a significant multi-year commitment by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston to support the economic revitalization of Springfield.

Kodrzycki, who is vice president and director of the Federal Reserve’s New England Public Policy Center, described the process by which the fed identified and examined Springfield and 25 peer cities that had a similar profile during the more prosperous 1960s. For this study, the Fed selected 10 of the 25 as “resurgent cities”—those that fared consistently better than others in subsequent decades.

“All of the cities had problems,” said Kodrzycki. But those designated as resurgent cities had a median family income that was $10,000 higher overall than Springfield’s; experienced median household income growth; had a lower poverty rate; had a change in poverty that was better than Springfield’s; and had not lost a significant amount of population.

Hear more about the strategies and characteristics of resurgent cities in this podcast.

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